At least 19 killed, 20 injured in stabbing near Tokyo

Police officers stand by with ambulances and firetrucks on a street near a facility for the handicapped where a number of people were killed and dozens injured in a knife attack Tuesday in Sagamihara, outside Tokyo. Kyodo News via Associated Press

SAGAMIHARA, Japan — A young Japanese man went on a stabbing rampage Tuesday at a facility for the mentally disabled where he had been fired, officials said, killing 19 people months after he gave a letter to Parliament outlining the bloody plan and saying all disabled people should be put to death.

When he was done, Kanagawa prefectural authorities said, 26-year-old Satoshi Uematsu had left dead or injured nearly a third of the almost 150 patients at the facility in a matter of 40 minutes in the early Tuesday attack. It is Japan’s deadliest mass killing in decades. The fire department said 25 were wounded, 20 of them seriously.

Security camera footage played on TV news programs showed a man driving up in a black car and carrying several knives to the Tsukui Yamayuri-en facility in Sagamihara, 30 miles west of Tokyo. The man broke in by shattering a window at 2:10 a.m., according to a prefectural health official, and then set about slashing the patients’ throats.

Sagamihara fire department official Kunio Takano said the attacker killed 10 women and nine men. The youngest was 19, the oldest 70.

Details of the attack, including whether the victims were asleep or otherwise helpless, were not immediately known. Kanagawa prefecture welfare division official Tatsuhisa Hirosue said many details weren’t clear because those who might know were still being questioned by police.

The suspect calmly turned himself in about two hours after the attack, police said.

Uematsu had worked at Tsukui Yamayuri-en, which means mountain lily garden, from 2012 until February, when he was let go. He knew the staffing would be down to just a handful in the wee hours of the morning, Japanese media reports said.

Not much is known yet about his background, but Uematsu once dreamed of becoming a teacher. In two group photos posted on his Facebook, he looks happy, smiling widely with other young men.

“It was so much fun today. Thank you, all. Now I am 23, but please be friends forever,” a 2013 post says.

But somewhere along the way, things went terribly awry.

In February, Uematsu tried to hand-deliver a letter to Parliament’s lower house speaker that revealed his dark turmoil. It demanded that all disabled people be put to death through “a world that allows for mercy killing,” Kyodo news agency and TBS TV reported. The Parliament office also confirmed the letter.

Uematsu boasted in the letter that he had the ability to kill 470 disabled people in what he called was “a revolution,” and outlined an attack on two facilities, after which he said he will turn himself in. He also asked he be judged innocent on grounds of insanity, be given 500 million yen ($5 million) in aid and plastic surgery so he could lead a normal life afterward.

“My reasoning is that I may be able to revitalize the world economy and I thought it may be possible to prevent World War III,” the letter says.

The letter was delivered before Uematsu’s last day of work at the facility, but it was unclear whether the letter played a role in his firing, or even if his superiors had known about it.

The letter included Uematsu’s name, address and telephone number, and reports of his threats were relayed to local police where Uematsu lived, Kyodo said.

Kanagawa Gov. Yuji Kuroiwa apologized for having failed to act on the warning signs.

Some people in the area said they were shocked that Uematsu is accused, and described him as polite and upstanding.

Akihiro Hasegawa, who lived next door to Uematsu, said he heard Uematsu had gotten in trouble with the facility, initially over sporting a tattoo, often frowned upon in mainstream Japanese society because of its association with criminal groups.

“He was just an ordinary young fellow,” he said.

Yasuyuki Deguchi, a criminologist, said Uematsu’s alleged actions were typical of someone who bears a grudge and seeks revenge, because it appeared he planned out the attack, and then he turned himself in to police.

“Accomplishing his goal was all he wanted,” Deguchi said on TV Asahi.

Michael Gillan Peckitt, a lecturer in clinical philosophy at Osaka University in central Japan, and an expert on disabled people’s issues in Japan, said the attack speaks more about Uematsu than the treatment of the disabled in Japan.

“It highlights the need for an early-intervention system in the Japanese mental health system. Someone doesn’t get to that state without some symptoms of mental illness,” he said.

Mass killings are rare in Japan. Because of the country’s extremely strict gun-control laws, any attacker usually resorts to stabbings. In 2008, seven people were killed by a man who slammed a truck into a crowd of people in central Tokyo’s Akihabara electronics district and then stabbed passers-by.

In 2001, a man killed eight children and injured 13 others in a knife attack at an elementary school in the city of Osaka. The incident shocked Japan and led to increased security at schools.

This month, a man stabbed four people at a library in northeastern Japan, allegedly over their improper handling of his questions. No one was killed.

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lost sheep

Gun control doesn’t work. Except in Japan. Knife control not so much.

Kevin Rhoades

Another example of an individual being responsible for evil carnage, not an inanimate object, be it a knife, firearm, hammer, fists, explosives, etc.

Controlling inanimate objects will not stop individuals from perpetrating heinous acts of violence.

hawkins9559695

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sda4er5re

CleanUpME

People control not object control.

maineincrisis

Wait a second, this headline must be wrong!!! This sort of thing ONLY happens becuase of guns!!!! What the what???

KennebunkportPatriot

I happens because violence is considered a last – and sometimes a first – resort; one that some people cannot control. It seems to be in our DNA to some degree. The ‘tool’ chosen is not all that relevant. Death is death. If knives are more available, they will be used. If it is guns, they will be used.

maineincrisis

And so will knives, bombs, trucks, fire…. need i go on? The gun debate is over!!

theophiluser

Dream on.

KennebunkportPatriot

Is it over? Then why are machine guns banned?

Mark Gravel

The debate over gun laws is over. They do not work.

PPHisbiased

“It happens because violence is considered a last – and sometimes a first – resort; one that some people cannot control.”
I just thought I would point that out since you are the grammar and spelling police chief here.

xcalibur1066

Grammar Karma… you forgot to belittle kenindy and make fun of their education.

‘If this man had a semi-automatic assault rifle, he would have killed even more. Because everyone should have one. Knives are so slow.’

Right?

Mark Gravel

Apparently you don’t know anyone skilled in killing with a knife. Fast enough to kill many.

xcalibur1066

In this setting, the difference between a semi auto and a single action would be almost non-existent.

hpmcg

Lost in the bickering about weapons sure to follow this piece will be the fact that this crazy person killed and wounded people in a home for defenseless, disabled adults. It could just as easily have been a baseball bat or a garden spade.

Inspector Clouseau

And that’s why the death toll was so high….if these people were able to run away, there wouldn’t have been anywhere close to this number of deaths; the same CANNOT be said if somebody brings in a semiautomatic weapon with 100-round clip into a public place because you can’t outrun bullets!

Mark Gravel

First, it is called a detachable magazine, not a clip. Second, a magazine (clip) is worthless unless it is loaded with a cartridge. The bullet is the projectile, which is part of the cartridges. Google “bullet wiki” to learn the working parts of ammunition.

The miss use of many terms is testament to you lack of knowledge about guns. Now why would readers want to listen to someone who does not know what they are talking about? Darn good question Mr. Right.

Mark Gravel

Has anyone else noticed that Japan has virtual no violence Muslim extremist?
Why is what? Oh, yea, they control immigration from that part of the world. Go figure.

Save lives, vote Trump.

Inspector Clouseau

“Save lives, vote Trump.”

(And screw the Constitution)….

Mark Gravel

So you are accusing Trump of a crime that he has yet to commit – Inspector Clouseau, the bumbling idiot inspector, is fitting.

Appears like all drama and speculation to me, both of which are not facts.

Adam_Romero

Those darn assault knives should be outlawed. They only make it easier for people to kill!

Thistle

Mental illness exists all over the world. That is what we need to focus on and work to solve.

Turning a tragedy like this into a political fight over guns (or knives) is just plain ignorant.

William Linnell

Agreed. I’m concerned that the State of Connecticut is withholding the medical records of Adam Lanza, the Sandy Hook mass shooter. I’d bet money that he was on anti-depressants, as was James Holmes of Aurora Colorado, and Eric Harris, of Colombine. The White House and others have focused on Sandy Hook as the great tragedy that it was, but seem slow to look at the likely cause(s) of this horrible event. Lanza’s behavior strikes me as a textbook example of someone reacting badly to prescription antidepressants.
It’s unconscionable that we are not looking at this information.

Inspector Clouseau

Yup, Big Pharma has turned Gen X and the millennials into drugged up zombies, and occasionally, one of them will snap and take out a “soft target” with a small arsenal of easily-obtained weapons and ammo….